Event Coverage: Mega Speed 2013 – Part 1

With Performance World going the way of the dodo had big shoes to fill when they stepped up to replace the previous unofficial show season opener here in Toronto.

From a spectators perspective Mega Speed 2012 was a resounding success and Mega Speed 2013 was shaping up to be a great follow up.

This year’s event did have a few hiccups —, and another being the mysterious the lack of pinstripers (which is a personal favourite attraction of mine )– but it still had the awesome variety of cars I’ve come to expect of any show that takes place at the International Center late March.

The number of cars at these events always yields multi part coverage so except a few more posts about the show this week. As always I’ve done my best to break it up by hall.

Today’s coverage is mostly from the truck/rat rod hall but a few others have mixed their way in.

Rat Rods

I still hesitate to use the words ‘Rat Rod’ because in some circles in can cause huge debates about what is, and isn’t a one, but I don’t think the owners of the vehicles below would take offence to their builds being called rats.

I waited pretty well all weekend to get some unobstructed shots of this truckThe choice, and location, of motor made it an instant fan favourite and usually a number of people were around itI never did figure out the motor was but I heard a few people guess that it’s from an early ElderadoEither way it was certainly uniqueI also also a big fan of this build which had a lot of great small detailsFor example you can just make out the connecting rod motor mount hereThis truck had a lot of pretty rad paintwork…though perhaps not the most P.G.Kind of blows my mind how small the passenger area of vehicles used to be compared to today, guess we are all getting fatThis was my first time seeing this truck (which was built by someone I used to ride with) and it totally deserved the first place award it took homeIn my opinion it’s rough where it ought to be and refined where it ought to beDiz Nutz.

Trucks

Big shout out to all the minitruck guys I talked to at Mega Speed. I’ll do my best to actually come out to Vanfest this year, I’ve only been meaning to for three years or so…

This s-10 really messed with me for awhile, I later found out the weird proportions were because of the Pro Mod front endSeptic company sponsored pro street rangerThe son of the owner of this truck drives a Mazda that could almost drive under itThis was crazy and I really regret not taking more photos of it nowNice to see a little old school flavour at the showI liked this, the lack of paint looked great on those wheelsThis Mazda has some of the best chameleon paint I’ve ever laid eyes onFront shot of the pairChatted with the owner of this truck for awhile, nice guy with a great looking truckI previously had no idea how hard this truck layed out. For whatever reason the other wheels didn’t really showcase itGary’s Ranger after it’s most recent round of changes.Andy Brown’s truck that was I think I can count on one hand the amount of bagged Dakotas I have seen in personand I can’t say I have ever seen a tank like this before

Hitman Hot Rods

is a shop located in Cambridge Ontario that I am long overdue to go and visit. They brought out a few things this year (like the red s10 above) but their show stealing piece was the frame below.

It’s hybrid suspension set-up built by (another) old riding friend of mine that will eventually sit under another truck that Gary is building.

A few of Hitman’s more standard framesThe first time I saw a photo of this four bag configuration was and I must have spun my phone around five times trying to figure what was going onTwo of the bags out back push fluid to the hydraulic cylinders up front, which is a similar set-up to the Andy’s MazdaThe outer frame rails also double as air tanksIn this shot you can see Jeff from Switches ‘N Thangs talking to Matt about the details of the buildThis motor isn’t the one that will eventually find it’s way under the hood of the truckOne last look